"It is not as bad as it seems," he said. "I think he will recover consciousness presently. He must have been thrown rather violently."
She went away somewhat comforted. Outside the door she found Patsy seated on a chair, his head fallen in his hands. Shot was sitting by him, his nose on Patsy's knee. They looked companions in suffering.
"The doctor is hopeful," she said, with a hand on Patsy's shoulder.
"Go down and tell Reilly to come. The doctor wants him."
The flat-faced, soft-footed Reilly was to prove indeed in those sad days and nights an untold help and comfort. Patsy watched him curiously and enviously, going and coming, as he would, in and out the sick-room.
Absorbed as she was Lady O'Gara noticed that sick look of jealousy on Patsy's face. She herself was content to sit by her husband's bed and let others do the useful serviceable things, unless when by the doctor's orders she went out of doors for a while.
"We don't want him to open his eyes on a white face he doesn't know.
The better you look, my Lady, the better it will be for him," said Dr.
Costello.
The afternoon after the accident a watery sun had come out in fitful gleams. It had been raining and blowing for some hours. There was still no sign of returning consciousness in the sick man. Sir Shawn's face looked heavy and dull on the pillow, where he lay as motionless as though he were already dead.
"Concussion, not fracture," said the doctor, lifting an eyelid to look at the unseeing eye. "He will come to himself presently."
And so saying he had sent her out to walk, bidding her exercise the dog as well as herself, for Shot was a heartbreak in these days, lying about and sighing, a creature ill at ease.
"So long as he does not howl," she said piteously, "I do not mind. I could not bear him to howl."